Tear Gas Should be Banned
I was driving past the Federal Building in Eugene to a restaurant and was not aware that ICE agents were going to spray tear gas into the night to deter protesters standing against ICE and their violence. When I opened the window of my car to ask about the smell, a person let me know that they sprayed tear gas. I kept driving, but instantly felt my eyes and lungs burning. We drove home and showered and changed and washed all our clothes that were exposed to the toxic chemicals. It was horrifying to be caught in this gas and to see the ICE agents in camouflage with guns, lined up at night in front of the Federal Building with gas masks on.
Tear gas is banned for use in war, but not banned for use against protestors and the environment. Its residues can cause long-term health effects and are painful. It is wrong to use this gas as a weapon against protestors and any people, plants or animals. There are other means to de-escalate crowds that trained officers are aware of. I do not want my tax dollars spent on the release of chemicals like tear gas that cause such harm to people and to the plants and animals that fall victim to their use.
Pat Boleyn
Springfield
History Lessons
I read and appreciated Jenny Jonak’s recent viewpoint (“What Does It Mean to Be an American?” Jan. 29) and wanted to add some things:
While no one should have to die at the hands of the state, the fact that we are seeing white folks getting murdered as a result of their solidarity defending their immigrant neighbors speaks volumes. This is a direct result of organizing from movements for marginalized folks, most recently, the Black Lives Matter and Free Palestine movements. The racial uprisings of 2020, led principally by the Movement for Black Lives, made direct asks of white folks to educate themselves, to give up their privileges, to walk behind their intentions with actions and resources. While there has been much pontificating over whether or not structural political gains were made as a result of those protests, what we have seen are more white accomplices acting in accordance with their espoused values. And while the murder of allies is deeply upsetting and tragic, it reveals something more heartening than a headline can show: that more and more of us would rather put ourselves in harm’s way standing up for our neighbors than stay silent, or stay out of it.
West Kaufman
Eugene
How to Get to Trump
How do you get through to a president who dismisses every word he doesn’t want to hear as from “the radical left?”
Put your message in the mouth of a business billionaire. In the business world, Trump is known as TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out. That’s because every time one of his dictatorial schemes — seizing Greenland, vanity tariffs — trashes the market and he sees the results on the daily ticker, he backs off.
Podcaster Scott Galloway says we can send an economic signal to Trump — and he will recall the army of thugs he’s unleashed on our streets and he will stop seizing our ballots.
Send a signal in February by unsubscribing from platforms owned by the billionaires who have Trump’s ear: Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. ResistAndUnsubscribe.com
I can remember reading about thugs shooting people in the streets of Nazi Germany with impunity and thinking how could that happen? Why wouldn’t the good people do something?
Trump is unmoved by blood in the snow; this month, let’s give him an economic signal he can’t ignore.
Diane Dietz
Eugene
No Fines for Panhandling
This is not the time to be imposing fines and other punitive measures to discourage panhandling in Eugene.
Social services are being cut while numbers of homelessness and poverty are increasing.
Without panhandling, we will see crime rates escalate and growing use of emergency services like the emergency room, ICU and jail because people will be starving.
We need to address these issues more effectively, and criminalizing poverty and making kindness a crime is not the answer.
Please email our Eugene City Council before Feb. 18.
Susan Matthews
Eugene
Don’t Talk to the Feds
I got a call for a statement from EW about the FBI knocking on doors and looking for imagery to incriminate folks around the Jan. 30 “riot.”
I’ve been sticking my neck out doing radical media for decades under the watchful eye of the man; I’m getting too old to change my ways now. Fuck the FBI and anyone who cooperates with them, like the fat cats of Eugene, the insiders of the powerful, the city manager, Eugene Police Department, etc. They’ll play ball with the feds happily. But you young-uns who are new to the smooth ways of the FBI, when they come knocking, please just let them know you have nothing to say and they can speak with your attorney. Do not answer any of their questions. Us old fucks need not judge the youth for their radical ways and throw them to the wolves.
One other thing: When will the Eugene mayor and City Council ever grow a pair? It’s time for ya’all to be brave enough to speak your truth and not the city attorneys, city managers, the police chiefs or the spin doctors whispering in your ear.
Tim Lewis
PictureEugene
ONLINE EXTRA LETTERS
Sound Familiar?
I asked Google, “Did disease kill most Native Americans?” The AI summary replied: “Yes, introduced diseases killed a vast majority of Native Americans following European contact, with estimates suggesting up to 90–95% of the indigenous population perished from infections like smallpox, measles and influenza.”
Now we learn that 7-year-old Diana Crespo and her family were snatched off the streets of Portland and shipped to the detention center in Dilley, Texas, where a measles outbreak is occurring. Is this a coincidence, or is the Trump administration taking away vaccines for the purpose of Eugenics, for the purpose of hurting vulnerable people?
Jeff Phillips
Eugene
Newport and ICE
Many folks are protesting the locating of an immigration lockup on the coast, maybe in Newport. Bad idea.
They should realize that if ICE is going to be continuing to seize immigrants, it would be better to have them kept in Oregon, where their lawyers can more easily get to them and our Oregon federal judges may give them a better chance than judges in Texas and Louisiana would.
Martin Henner
Eugene
The MAGA MYTH
The MAGA movement would like us all to believe that they are making America great again. By cutting off federal funding for medical research to find cancer cures, prevent future pandemics and try to save lives in general will make us great and healthier. By cutting off funding for weather detection and forecasting to alert our citizens of potential weather and natural disasters will make us all safer and great. By removing all the agencies that protect our citizens from scams, fraud and predatory practices that may bankrupt or drive us out of our homes in crushing debt will make us all great. Removing much-needed services from our most vulnerable citizens and our veterans who served our country will make us all great as well.
Actually, I don’t think any of those drastic actions will make the majority of our citizens anything but poorer, less safe, more fearful of their future, less healthy and they will shorten many lives.
One has to wonder whose lives will be made better by these MAGA actions. It won’t be the majority of our citizens.
Hal Huestis
Eugene
A Dictator is Born
I find it interesting that Adolf Hitler died in 1945 and Donald Trump was born in 1946. Reincarnation?